


Lullaby

by TurtleTotem



Series: Augustos [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Post-Kings Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Just a little fluff about Damen and Laurent's parenting styles. Sequel to "Legacy."(On Tumblrhere.)





	Lullaby

For the most part, Laurent seemed content to observe the child from a distance—watching with interest, but no apparent desire to participate, as Damen rocked and bounced and babbled at him. Damen had insisted that Cassina, the nursemaid, bring little Augustos to their rooms twice each day.

“I’m sure Cassina is happy to do that,” Laurent said, one day when Damen took the time to spoon thin gruel into the baby’s mouth.

“She is,” Damen said cheerfully, “and so am I. Do you not have the saying in Vere, that if the steward feeds the king’s dog, it is the steward’s dog?”

Laurent cocked his head. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe we do.”

“You have enough experience of hounds and horses, though, to know it’s the truth. I’ll choose a more personally relevant example, though—did your brother not make time for your company?” Damen felt this was still strange fragile territory between them, yet the point was worth making. And make it he did, judging by the way Laurent’s head jerked back an inch.

Damen, his gaze still on baby Gus as he tried to coax another spoonful into his mouth, ventured onto ground more dangerous still. “From what little you have said, I have assumed—and correct me if I do it wrongly—that your father and perhaps even your mother were content to make sure you were well cared for by others, but it was Auguste who took the time to do so himself.”

“My mother,” Laurent said, and stopped a long moment before finishing simply, “tried.”

Damen waited.

“Between her health and her temperament, her efforts were… well, I appreciated that she made them.”

“I hope Gus will appreciate mine, clumsy as they may be.” Damen smiled at the kicking, flailing baby, giving up on the gruel and trying to clean his messy face instead.

“Is it… customary, then, for the Akielon nobility to be so directly involved with their infants?”

Damen cocked his head, considering his answer. As ever, Laurent made him examine so many things he had never thought to question before. “Mothers more so than fathers, as a general thing. But I had no mother, much as our Gus does not. And so my father stepped in, and so shall I.”

“Don’t call him Gus,” was Laurent’s only reply.

*

The baby’s second visit, that night, came after a very long afternoon and evening; visiting dignitaries had required both kings’ undivided attention during a hunt, a bout of performance sports, and a dinner full of loud and heated argument. Damen sent Cassina to her bed, with no need to return until the baby grew hungry again in a couple of hours. He stretched out on the couch in their chambers with sleepy Gus on his chest, enjoying the tiny warm weight that rose and fell as he breathed.

“Makes for much more restful company than the ambassadors, doesn’t he?” he mumbled to Laurent, who barely glanced up from his book.

The next thing he knew, he was blinking awake in a chamber gone entirely dark but for the fire in the hearth. He supposed he couldn’t have been asleep  _very_ long, but the stars outside the window had moved, and the baby was crying.

Crying from across the room, not on his chest.

Damen’s confusion and alarm faded the moment he turned his head. Laurent, standing by the fire, was holding the baby.

“Shush, now, let your Papa sleep,” he murmured, bouncing Gus in his arms. “That’s better. See, I am not so very poor an alternative to him.” With the baby quieted, he switched from bouncing to a less energy-intensive swaying, slow and graceful. “Such a solemn little face. Children are wise, you know. It is only as we grow up that we learn to use our brains instead of our hearts. I have a quite excellent brain. I hope you are blessed with something better.”

Gus began to fret again, indignant and kicking.

“No, no, don’t be that way,” Laurent said, sounding a bit frantic as he resumed bouncing him. “There’s no need for an outcry, little gosling. Cassina will be here any moment to feed you. I promise, you will survive until then. Courage, little gosling.”

The crying continued, and strengthened, and Damen was on the verge of rising to take the babe when Laurent began to sing.

He recognized the tune as an ancient and well-used lullaby, simple and silly enough that there was surprisingly little difference between the Akielon lyrics and the Veretian ones. Damen had never heard Laurent sing. His voice was lower than Damen would have expected, clear and true and unabashed.

Gus’s cries trailed off into whimpers and then coos, and he reached up with one tiny hand to pat clumsily at Laurent’s mouth. Laurent smiled crookedly, kissed the little palm when it landed on his lips, and continued singing.

Damen would not have interrupted for the world. He stayed on the couch, and was asleep again, lulled by Laurent’s singing, by the time Cassina came.


End file.
